Over the last 20 years, credit cards have gained widespread acceptance as a means of paying for goods and services. In 1991, American consumers used credit cards to spend an excess of $250 billion. Worldwide, the value of credit card transactions exceeded $600 billion. The large volume of credit card transactions requires merchants to collect, transmit, and store vast amounts of transaction related data.
Debit is a distinct process and network utilized and should not be used. Passive debit is a bank card, or “check card”. As used herein, the term “credit card” is intended to include credit cards, charge cards, passive debit cards, and other financial account cards. Credit cards typically include two sources of essential account information. A magnetic stripe includes the account number, expiration date, cardholder's name, and other information. Embossed characters also provide the account number, expiration date, and cardholder's name in a form that may be recognized by a merchant.
In order for a credit card transaction to be processed, a merchant must collect a variety of data associated with the transaction. This data typically includes the purchase price and date of the transaction, the account number and expiration date of the credit card, and the cardholder's name and signature. Once this data is collected, the merchant transmits the transaction data, along with its merchant identification code, to a credit card transaction processor. The credit card processor sorts the data according to the company that issued the credit card, and forwards the data to the appropriate company. At that point, the credit card issuer posts the transaction to the cardholder's account and the purchase amount is credited to the merchant.
Formerly, credit card transaction data was recorded, transferred, and stored in the form of paper receipts. Over the years, the credit card industry has developed various types of equipment that provide for the electronic acquisition, transmission, and storage of transaction data. In addition to reducing the industry's reliance on paper records, this equipment expedites the processing of credit card transactions and minimizes errors associated with the entry of transaction data. The equipment includes point-of-sale (POS) equipment used by merchants and computer systems used by credit card processors.
Most merchants employ a cash register system of some type in order to record data associated with transactions, regardless of whether payment is made with cash, check, or credit card. In addition to a cash register, merchants that accept credit cards use other POS equipment to collect data associated with the credit card. This equipment usually includes electronic terminals that read the account number and expiration date from a magnetic stripe on the credit card and transmit the transaction data to the credit card processor. Such equipment may be separate from, or integrated into, the cash register equipment.
In a typical credit card transaction, a cardholder presents a credit card to a merchant, who records transaction data using an electronic terminal. The recorded data includes the amount of the purchase, the cardholder's account number, the card's expiration date, the merchant identification number, and the date of the transaction. In most cases, the cardholder is also required to sign a copy of the receipt.
Once the terminal accumulates the transaction data, the terminal automatically dials the merchant's credit card processor or other authorization source and initiates an authorization request. When the transaction is authorized, the terminal displays and/or stores the approval code or authorization indicia received from the credit card processor. The approval code is recorded along with the other transaction data. The POS equipment typically includes a printer that is capable of printing a sales receipt. The sales receipt includes the transaction data and approval code, and provides a space for the cardholder's signature.
These earlier devices allow numeric data, such as purchase price, date, account number, and merchant identification number to be easily accumulated, stored, and transmitted between the merchant and credit card processor. Consequently, numeric transaction data may be transferred and stored without the use of paper receipts. Although this numeric data is sufficient to process the transaction, it may be insufficient to validate or authenticate a transaction that is disputed by the cardholder. In the event a cardholder questions or denies the legitimacy of a transaction that appears on his or her credit card statement, it may be necessary for the merchant to produce a copy of the signed receipt as evidence that the cardholder was a party to the transaction. Therefore, it is necessary that a copy of each signed receipt be retained by the merchant for some period of time.
This process of retaining and retrieving signed receipts is simplified if the merchant employs POS equipment that allows the cardholder's signature to be digitized, transmitted, and stored along with the numeric data associated with the transaction. In such cases, the signature is digitized as the cardholder signs the credit card receipt. The digitized signature data and numeric transaction data are combined and transmitted to the credit card processor, where the data is stored for a predetermined period of time. If a cardholder disputes the validity of a transaction, the entirety of the transaction data, including a facsimile of the signature, may be provided by the credit card processor, and may serve as evidence of the legitimacy of the transaction.
Many merchants have invested significant amounts of money in POS equipment, such as sophisticated electronic cash registers, that allows the merchant to collect all of the numeric data associated with credit card transactions. In the case of larger merchants, the POS equipment may be connected to a merchant's accounting computer system or “in-store processor” via a data communications network in order to facilitate the merchant's business operations. Although it may be advantageous to capture signatures in such cases, it is not cost effective or convenient to do so if it is necessary to add additional printers or terminals that duplicate the merchant's existing capabilities. Furthermore, a merchant's existing POS equipment may be connected to peripheral devices, such as check readers for automatically reading checking account data and PIN pads, which are used to input a debit card user's personal identification number (PIN). The existing POS equipment may not provide sufficient communications ports to allow the merchant to connect additional peripheral devices.
A number of different technologies have been used to capture a signature electronically.
The very first electronic signature capture terminals consisted of an intelligent pen and a data collection pad. The store associate would slide the printed receipt into a frame within the collection pad, and the customer would use the intelligent ink pen to sign within an opening in the frame onto the actual receipt paper. A “wet signature” as defined herein is a non-electronic signature, produced on paper or other suitable media, using ink or other suitable writing substance. The ballpoint pen would both write out the customer's “wet” signature and simultaneously record the strokes of the pen as binary data within the collection pad's frame of reference. This data would then be stored in a database for later reference. However, this technology had a number of drawbacks. First, the technology was prone to failure and required frequent replacement of a very expensive “intelligent pen” (early in the product life the cost was nearly $100). Second, a lack of manufacture competition kept hardware acquisition costs very high for retailers.
The next generation of electronic signature capture terminals was fundamentally split in two by the manufacturers' utilization of display technology.
In the first display technology (passive touch panel display technology), a passive display refers to a multi-layered resistive touch panel display. This technology features a touch panel grid sandwiched between a glass panel and a protective sheet of Mylar. The terminal captures data points (binary x, y data) when the customer presses the plastic stylus against the Mylar layer, which contacts the touch panel's grid and closes the circuit. The signature capture terminal is then able to record those data points and redraw that “point data” on the display, as a signature, a split second after capture. As the stylus appears to populate pixels during the strokes of the signature on the display, the “redraw” simulates a wet signature.
Although this technology overcame some of the earlier problems, it still had problems of its own. Early versions of this technology utilized a fixed Mylar overlay, which clouded after extensive use, and significantly obscured the display, making it difficult for the customer to see and identify his or her signature. Subsequent releases of this technology utilized a replaceable, peel-off Mylar screen protector. However, replacement of these screen protectors required store personnel to take an active role in the upkeep of these devices. This active refresh of the display's screen protector seldom occurred in the past and highlights a fundamental flaw in sign-on-glass technology. In addition, early versions of this technology suffered from what became known as “spiking,” which occurs when two data entry points are recognized by the display. Spiking occurs when both the stylus and an unintended object, such as either a finger or palm of the user, touches the display at the same time. This causes simultaneous data entry points, which are redrawn by the terminal as a spike that begins within the customer signature and flares out drastically to the object's point of contact with the display. Subsequent versions of this technology utilized algorithms for palm rejection, which anticipate the signature pattern and ignore those data points outside of an average signature parameter. No “wet signature” was used in this technology.
The second display technology was capacitive displays. Capacitive displays require the use of an electronic “intelligent pen,” or stylus, which orients the cursor on the display to track stylus movement across the display. This also simulates a “wet signature,” by redrawing the signature simultaneously. However, this technology also has its drawbacks. First, the stylus is costly ($25.00 to $40.00 each), and this is a very common replacement part for POS terminals utilizing capacitive display technology. Styli were commonly broken or pulled from the terminal, which severed the connection and rendered the device useless. Second, capacitive displays have no Mylar to protect the glass layer of the display, so when debris, such as cement dust, lands on the display, the stylus travels over the display carrying the debris, which scratches the surface of the glass layer of the capacitive display. Third, early versions of this technology required static electricity to be built up in the body of the customer to power the electronic stylus during signature. Finally, microprocessors of that era had limited computing power and were easily overwhelmed by the requirements of this technology. Again, no “wet” signature was used.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,138,140, herein incorporated by reference, discloses signature capture using electro-optical scanning for acknowledging receipt of a delivery. However, this patent requires an identification structure defining a space for receiving the signature, such as preamble codes located at opposite boundaries of the space. Furthermore, there is no disclosure of using such signature capture in a retail environment.
Several firms manufacture electronic signature capture pads destined for use by American retailers. Examples include Symbol Technologies (www.symbol.com), Ingenico (www.ingenico-us.com), Hand Held Products (www.handheld.com), Verifone (www.verifone.com), and Hypercom (www.hypercom.com). Some of these devices may be employed to read a 2D image of a customer's “wet” signature. For example, the 2D imager or scanner may look at a barcode and read the thickness of the white spaces between the lines in the barcode to identify the orientation of the barcode. The imager may then use the barcode as a navigational aid and may be pre-programmed to lift the image in relation to the physical proximity to the barcode. Route delivery companies, such as Miller Brewing and Frito-Lay, have used 2D signature lift in the past for a proof of delivery. The typical solution utilizes a portable computing device, with an integrated 2D imager and preprinted invoices. The customer receives delivery of the product and signs an invoice acknowledging receipt. The delivery person scans a barcode that is printed on the invoice and captures the signature and key invoice data to prove delivery.
However, 2D signature lift has not yet been used, to the Applicant's knowledge, for wet signature capture in the retail store environment to integrate the signature image with the retail store's transaction log for the purpose of recording credit card transactions.